Correction to: Maximum emergency department overcrowding is correlated with occurrence of unexpected cardiac arrest

Abstract Background Emergency department overcrowding negatively impacts critically ill patients and could lead to the occurrence of cardiac arrest. However, association between emergency department crowding and occurrence of in-hospital cardiac arrest has not been thoroughly investigated. This study aimed to evaluate the correlation between emergency department occupancy rates and incidence of in-hospital cardiac arrest. Methods A single-center, observational, registry-based cohort study was performed including all consecutive adult, non-traumatic in-hospital cardiac arrest patients between January 2014 and June 2017. We used emergency department occupancy rates as a crowding index at time of presentation time of cardiac arrest and at the time of maximum crowding, and the average crowding rate for the duration of emergency department stay for each patient. To calculate incidence rate, we divided the number of arrest cases for each emergency department occupancy period by accumulated time. The primary outcome is association between the incidence of in-hospital cardiac arrest and emergency department occupancy rates. Results During the study period, 629 adult, non-traumatic cardiac arrest patients were enrolled in our registry. Among these, 187 patients experienced in-hospital cardiac arrest. Overall survival discharge rate was 24.6%, and 20.3% of patients showed favorable neurologic outcomes at discharge. Emergency department occupancy rates were positively correlated with in-hospital cardiac arrest occurrence. Moreover, maximum emergency department occupancy in the critical zone had the strongest positive correlation with in-hospital cardiac arrest occurrence (Spearman rank correlation ρ = 1.0, P < .01). Meanwhile, occupancy rates were not associated with the ED mortality. Conclusion Maximum emergency department occupancy was strongly associated with in-hospital cardiac arrest occurrence. Adequate monitoring and managing the maximum occupancy rate would be important to reduce unexpected cardiac arrest.

Download Full-text

Maximum emergency department overcrowding is correlated with occurrence of unexpected cardiac arrest

10.21203/rs.2.24634/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

June-sung Kim ◽

Hyun-Jin Bae ◽

Chang Hwan Sohn ◽

Sung-Eun Cho ◽

Jeongeun Hwang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Emergency Department ◽

Cardiac Arrest ◽

Cerebral Performance Category ◽

Rank Correlation ◽

Spontaneous Circulation ◽

Emergency Department Overcrowding ◽

Neurologic Outcomes ◽

Traumatic Cardiac Arrest ◽

Occupancy Rates ◽

Hospital Cardiac Arrest

Abstract Background Emergency department overcrowding negatively impacts critically ill patients and could lead to the occurrence of cardiac arrest. However, associations between emergency department crowding and occurrence of both in-hospital cardiac arrest and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest have not been thoroughly investigated. This study aimed to evaluate the correlation between emergency department occupancy rates and incidence of in-hospital and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Methods A single-center, observational, registry-based cohort study was performed including all consecutive adult, non-traumatic cardiac arrest patients between January 2014 and June 2017. We used emergency department occupancy rates as a crowding index at time of presentation time of cardiac arrest and at the time of maximum crowding, and the average crowding rate for the duration of emergency department stay for each patient. To calculate incidence rate, we divided the number of arrest cases for each emergency department occupancy period by accumulated time. The primary outcome is association between the incidence of in-hospital cardiac arrest and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and emergency department occupancy rates. Results During the study period, 629 adult, non-traumatic cardiac arrest patients were enrolled in our registry. Among these, 187 patients experienced in-hospital cardiac arrest and 442 patients had out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. In-hospital cardiac arrest patients compared to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients had a significantly higher return of spontaneous circulation rates (16.5% vs. 4.8%; P < .01) and better neurologic outcomes at discharge (cerebral performance category scales 4.7 vs. 4.0; P < .01). Emergency department occupancy rates were positively correlated with in-hospital cardiac arrest occurrence. Moreover, maximum emergency department occupancy in the critical zone had the strongest positive correlation with in-hospital cardiac arrest occurrence (Spearman rank correlation ρ = 1.0, P < .01). Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest incidence was negatively correlated with emergency department occupancy (ρ = -0.79, P = .04). Conclusion Maximum emergency department occupancy was strongly associated with in-hospital cardiac arrest occurrence, while occupancy rate was negatively correlated with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest incidence.

Download Full-text